I hate your work.
from iCarly--my son's favorite show
The famous sculptor says to the aspiring sculptor his work “is amateurish at best. …They’re not good.”
The aspiring sculptor falls into despair. Gives up his art. Gets a regular job. Of course, by the end of the sitcom, the worshipped sculptor comes back to admit he was just jealous. The younger man’s art is brilliant. Maybe they could work on a piece together. Smiles all around.
This is an episode of iCarly. Spencer (pictured over there in his sculpture of a giant coffee) is Carly’s older brother and guardian. She had asked the sculptor to come see her brother’s art. She thought hearing compliments from his idol would be a great gift. But after the idol says terrible things, Spencer explains that he can’t pour his heart into something he can’t do well.
Every time that episode comes on, I wonder how I’d react if a writer I loved panned my work. What if Margaret Atwood said I had no talent or if she read my work and shrugged? If some unknown person insulted your work or if a friend didn’t like it, is that easier to dismiss? Could you find it in yourself to keep writing or would you put all the stories away?
Spencer is an aspiring sculptor. His sister, Carly, gets a famous sculptor to come see her brothers work.
SHOUT
Most people were shouting and waving signs. It was a rainy, cold November day and I was standing in front of the Texas White House. I had no sign. I didn’t shout. I held my umbrella.
One man had a bullhorn. He was tall and thin. Maybe in his 50s. He was part of the other side.
I don’t really like to go to marches and protests. No matter how I emotional I can get when talking to a friend about an issue, I can’t make myself shout in a crowd. I stand on the edge and kind of smile at the people I’m supposed to shout along with.
So, I stood in the drizzle thinking about the Texas Book Festival going on around the corner and if going to such events makes me a better participant in democracy or a silly person standing in the cold. And this man marched over to me, put the bullhorn against the side of my head, and shouted.
Pain shot through my ear. I jerked away, hands to my ears, and my friend beside me, all 4′11″ of her, pushed him back. They shouted at each. Their words were lost in the bells clanging in my head.
I’ve been lucky how nice people have been to me here on my little edge of cyberspace. But the more anyone puts herself out into the world, the more likely she will have someone shout obscenities or insults or, indeed, criticisms. This is not a new observation, of course. It’s on my mind because I’ve got query letters, an MFA application, and art I’m trying to sell… It’s like I want to be shouted at. And whatever it is I’m saying with my work, does it need to be said? Can it make a difference?
That November day protest didn’t make any difference except to my ears.
Rejection is exhausting. Pick yourself up. Dust self off. Put the best spin on it. Learn a valuable lesson. Keep going. Repeat.
Can cookies change your life?
I walked into the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon. “Do you want to make cookies?” my mom said.
I was 14. “What?” A roll of cookie dough stretched across a cutting board.
She tried to look casual. “Well, I’ve never made cookies for you. And I thought I’d be a good mom and, you know, make some cookies. They’re just chocolate chip. And they’re not from scratch, but, you know, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
“You don’t have to make cookies, Mom. I’m okay if you don’t make cookies.”
She nodded. “I know. I know. But moms usually do make cookies and we’ve never done that.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’d like that. Let’s make these cookies then.”
Have you seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction? I like this movie.
In this scene Ana asks Harold the kind of negative question that expects an affirmative answer, “I mean, after a really awful, no-good day didn’t your mom make you cookies?”
“No,” Harold says. “Store bought.”
And the viewer could believe that this is why Harold isn’t living his life. This is where it all went wrong. His mother gave him store bought cookies.
I can’t work, do chores, make art, write, and make cookies. Is my son going to grow up and say, “My mom never made me cookies. She was too busy writing.” I do, at least, read him bedtime stories. And then I sit by his bed and work on my novel while he falls asleep.
So, what are you not doing when you are writing?
Will you marry me?
dad at his second job--he once made one of these for his girlfriend
“We’re going to get married,” dad said.
“Sure. But you’re going to have to show me the marriage certificate,” I said.
He laughed. “You don’t believe me?”
“Didn’t you buy her a ring like five years ago?”
“That was a nice ring. It was on sale. We got a real good deal.”
“Yeah, Dad. You just send me a postcard.”
Dad had been asking his girlfriend to marry him since at least 1986. This conversation took place in 1995. In 1997 I got the postcard and the photocopy of the marriage certificate. They’re still married.
I sent out another query letter last week. This agent had liked my first novel. She liked the first 50 pages enough to ask for the entire manuscript. She ended up passing, but her letter was kind and encouraging. So, I decided to query her about my second novel. Maybe this time I’ll be attractive enough.
Unlike my dad, who for all his flaws has never had a wandering eye, I’ve got to look at others. Eventually someone will say yes. Right?
Are you querying any agents? How do you go about the process? Have you given yourself a timeline–if no one says yes by such-and-such date, I’m going to back to my day job. How often have you been rejected? How much rejection can you take?
Does your face hurt?
It started with a bite. A mosquito bite on the back of the leg that seemed like nothing at all. But then came the swelling, the reddening, the blackening. Then came the daily trip to the doctor to change the tube in the leg. The daily change of soaked bandages. The inability to walk without leaning against walls and pain medication. Super antibiotics. Night spent sleeping in a chair because lying down hurts. A heating pad and long soaks in the bath.
Every movement of the leg tears the muscle where the infection has woven itself. But eventually it heals, and there is a purple, twisted scar.
This is MRSA staph. I’ve had it on my legs twice, my arm, in my ear, on my scalp in three places, and now on my face. Only by now I recognize it before it turns black. Now I go to the doctor before it becomes a volcano. My hair falls forward just enough to hide it as long as there is no breeze.
Well, this may be the regular staph. I’ve had that too. But they didn’t cut it open this time to take a culture. I caught it early enough, so there is just bactroban and antibiotics.
It is under control today. Looks like bad pimple today and I’ll go to IF+D today to make art and meet people. Before I couldn’t stand the idea of meeting anyone with this mark on my face. Will people want to buy anything from you if you looked diseased?
Vanity is a terrible thing. My father used to say, “Does your face hurt? Cause it’s killing me.” My face does hurt, and I’ve gotten little work done.
How productive have you been lately?
Shoulder Pads and Other Surprises
a going away party
I think it started by accident. I don’t even remember who started, but my roommate, L., pulled a nursing textbook out of her bag and a shoulder pad fell onto the classroom floor.
The next day I was at the library when I found shoulder pads in my bag. Shoulder pads in pockets. Shoulder pads in the refrigerator. In glove boxes. Behind towels and in makeup bags.
I went through my closet with scissors to check every blouse and jacket. I had 18 shoulder pads. In the living room I stood on a chair to put the shoulder pads on the ceiling fan blades.
I wish I’d been home when L. flipped on the switch.
Readers like surprises, right? How do you know which surprises work? What is a book you’ve read with great surprises? When does a surprise annoy you?
Keeping Everything in the Air
playing with the dog
Sometimes there aren’t any stories, just lists of things to do. I hate that.
Bind Me Up, Bind Me Down
seven novels and a glass of wine
I was four when my first plan went wrong. My room was dark and I was supposed to be asleep. I was jumping on my bed. The mattress slid sideways, a corner of it almost touched the floor. My effort to push the mattress back up failed.
So I started from the beginning. I dragged the entire mattress to the floor, certain that this would make everything easier. I’d push the mattress up to let it drop back onto the box springs. My parents would never know I’d been jumping on the bed.
I forgot to consider my skinny four-year-old arms. My parents found me sitting in the dark, on the mattress, on the floor, a sweaty, frustrated mess.
“What are you doing?” asked one grown-up shadow in the doorway.
“Have you been jumping on the bed?” said the other.
I got screamed at. And it is the only memory I have of my parents together.
So, here is my plan 37 years later. I’ve printed all seven novels I have written. Two are finished. Sort of. One is probably finished. Maybe. The others are, well, messy. Most of them take place in the same town. Characters show up here and there. It is not a series, but they overlap.
For the Christmas season I’ve been calling myself Jacob Marley and this binder is my chain to lug around for all my writing sins. I’ve giving myself 11 months to work through them. hahahaha
By then I may need a binder for myself.
Your turn. What is your plan for the next year? What challenges are ahead? Do you have any challenges you keep to yourself in case people laugh at you?
In 3 minutes you can…
This made me laugh. And I like to laugh.
I found this over at Rachelle Gardner’s blog, which has lots of good writerly information. Her blog I found over at Writtenwrydd’s blog. This Internet just never bloody ends, does it?
Rabbits, Writing, and Corpses
My kiddo snapped this picture at his school's Cowboy Round-Up.
“I saw the bobcat by the shed. I think it’s here because of the rabbits,” my dad said the other day. “There aren’t as many rabbits around now.”
“Do you remember when I tried to hide rabbits in my closet, Dad?” We have never talked about those rabbits.
“Sure,” he said. “That bobcat is big. I didn’t know bobcat’s got that big. And it’s skinny and tall.”
“Gee, I didn’t know they were very big either, Dad.” We didn’t talk about the rabbits in the closet.
I don’t know what I wanted my dad to say about those rabbits.
I don’t know what I want people to say about my writing either. Being a writer is a hell of a way to live–you might get compliments you can’t believe, you get criticism you don’t want to hear, or you get nothing at all. Did you read my story? Sure. What do you think about bobcats?
In graduate school I met a guy whose job in the Gulf War was to pick corpses up from the roads. He fidgeted in class. The writing life is not that life. It is a luxury. And still I can whine about how much I put into it and I don’t hear what I want to hear.
But when I was a kid, I didn’t hide those rabbits so that my dad and me could have a magical conversation decades later. I’m not writing so that I can hear that magical compliment. I’m writing because I’ve avoided thousands of other jobs.
Are you able to say exactly what you want from others when you write? Money? How much? A compliment? What would that compliment be? Approval? From whom? Revolution? From what?
And when your writing insecurities get out of hand (if you’re the sort of person that happens to), what helps you put things back in perspective?
